Monday Note + Yahoo | The Guardianhttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/series/monday-note+yahoo
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The Marissa Mayer turnaroundhttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/25/yahoo-work-life-balance
Academic criticism is all very well, but the new chief at Yahoo is focussed on the things that matter in turning round the business<p>Critics spew well-meaning generalities when criticizing Marissa Mayer's first moves at Yahoo! They fail to see the urgency of the company's turnaround situation, the need to refocus the workforce and spruce up the management.</p><p><strong>Last July, Yahoo! elected a new CEO, their </strong><a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/koogle-levinsohn-ceos-yahoo-144450522--finance.html"><strong>seventh or eight</strong></a><strong>, I've lost count.</strong> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Mayer">Marissa Mayer</a> is an ex-Google exec with a BS in symbolics systems and an MS in Computer Science from Stanford, just like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Forstall">Scott Forstall</a>. After a 13-year career at the biggest Cloud company on Earth, Mayer brings relevant experience to the CEO position of the once-great Web company. She also happens to be female but, unlike a predecessor of the same gender, Mayer doesn't appear to feel the need to assert power by <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamespoulos/2012/05/25/fired-yahoo-chief-carol-bartz-wishes-she-didnt-drop-so-many-f-bombs/">swearing like a sailor</a>.</p><p>Wharton faculty members who specialize in issues pertaining to employee productivity and work/life balance were similarly surprised by Mayer's all-encompassing policy change. &quot;Our experience in this field is that one-size-fits-all policies just don't work,&quot; notes <a href="https://mgmt.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/1318/">Stewart Friedman</a>, Wharton practice professor of management and director of the school's <a href="http://worklife.wharton.upenn.edu/">Work/Life Integration Project</a>. &quot;You want to have as many tools as possible available to you as an executive to be able to tailor the work to the demands of the task. The fewer tools you have available, the harder it is to solve the problem.&quot;</p><p>The fields of management/success/leadership are a lot like the finance industry in the sense that much of it is based on confusing correlation and chance with causation. We humans like to feel as if we understand and control our environments. We don't like to think of ourselves as helpless leaves blowing in the wind of chance. So we clutch at any ridiculous explanation of how things work. </p><p>I first noticed the questionable claims of management experts back in the 1990s, when it was fashionable to explain a company's success by its generous employee benefits. The quaint idea of the time was that treating employees like kings and queens would free their creative energies to create massive profits. The boring reality is that companies that are successful have the resources to be generous to employees and so they do. The best way a CEO can justify an obscene pay package is by treating employees generously. To put this in another way, <strong>have you ever seen a corporate turnaround that was caused primarily by improving employee benefits?</strong></p><p>Research has shown that companies with strong cultures outperform those without in the long-term financially. So we're big, big believers in building strong company cultures. And I think that's hard to do remotely. </p><p>We don't really telecommute at <a href="http://www.zappos.com/">Zappos</a>. We want employees to be interacting with each other, building those personal relationships and relationships outside of work as well.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/25/yahoo-work-life-balance">Continue reading...</a>YahooTechnologyWork-life balanceMon, 25 Mar 2013 18:19:47 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/25/yahoo-work-life-balanceDan Chung/Dan ChungA traffic jam on a Los Angeles freeway. It's just as bad in San Francisco - so why is Marissa Mayer putting Yahoo staff through it? Photograph: Dan ChungDan Chung/GuardianA traffic jam during early evening congestion on the freeway, Los Angeles, California. Photograph: Dan ChungJean-Louis Gassée2013-03-25T18:19:47ZYahoo and Hewlett-Packard: how bad boards can kill a companyhttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/sep/26/yahoo-hewlett-packard
While early-stage companies are especially fragile, one would hope mature ones are less vulnerable to the bad board malady<p><strong>&quot;A good board can't make a company, but a bad one will inevitably kill it.&quot;</strong> Thus spake Barry Weinman, the gentleman capitalist, when I joined the VC brotherhood. He meant to tell me to watch out for co-investors on the board of companies in our portfolio of investments. And he was right. We, vulture capitalists, are supposed to be ruthless – but, in fact, we're toothless. We see trouble ahead, but we dither, we squabble and only make the hard decisions when the damage is done.</p><p>While early-stage companies are especially fragile, one would hope mature ones, having survived childhood diseases, are less vulnerable to the bad board malady. But no, for a large company, a dysfunctional board of directors can be just as toxic as a divided investor syndicate is for a start-up. We have two Valley icons to prove it: Yahoo and HP.</p><p>What Yahoo! needs to do better – and we've talked about this – is accelerate innovation, reignite inspiration, and give our users what they want now…</p><p>Lane said he approached Whitman for the job sometime after she joined the board <em>eight months ago</em>, because he felt she had the kind of leadership that HP needed and was lacking under now-ousted CEO Leo Apotheker.</p><p>&quot;I have known and admired Leo for almost 20 years. He is ideally suited to build on HP's strong foundation, leverage its many assets and keep the company at the forefront of innovation.&quot;</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/sep/26/yahoo-hewlett-packard">Continue reading...</a>YahooHewlett-PackardTechnologyTechnology sectorMon, 26 Sep 2011 10:41:59 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/sep/26/yahoo-hewlett-packardPool/ReutersMeg Whitman is the new CEO of HP ... but for how long? Photograph: Pool/ReutersPool/ReutersMeg Whitman is the new CEO of HP ... but for how long? Photograph: Pool/ReutersJean-Louis Gassée2011-09-26T10:41:59Z